


I sing because I’m free

by harborshore



Category: Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe - Fannie Flagg
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2014-12-19
Packaged: 2018-03-02 06:35:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2803004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harborshore/pseuds/harborshore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three ways Idgie Threadgoode didn’t kiss Ruth Jamison – and one way she did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I sing because I’m free

**Author's Note:**

  * For [abluestocking](https://archiveofourown.org/users/abluestocking/gifts).



i.

The kingdom was old, and its traditions were strong. Still, when Idgie (short for Isabelle Dorothea Gracia) stood up at the long, long dinner table and said that she would never wear a dress again in her life, her father only laughed. He was a good-humored man, and a very kind king.It was when she went on a quest to save the scullery maid from a dragon that he began to have second thoughts about letting his youngest daughter go her own way all those years ago.

But he hadn’t been there at the beginning, when Ruth came to the door in the kitchen and asked for work and Idgie said “Yes” before Cook could open her mouth. He hadn’t been there when Idgie learned to charm bees out of their hives or swords out of their sheaths for Ruth (did I say the traditions of the kingdom were strong? I meant its magic), or when Ruth confessed to feeling much the same way, but very properly admonishing Idgie that a princess and a scullery maid surely had no future. Idgie went to bed preparing a goodly set of counter arguments so she could convince Ruth how wrong she was.

The dragon arriving the next morning to pillage the castle and its surrounding town was terribly inconvenient, really. And then it had the nerve to kidnap Ruth.

Idgie climbed the mountain cursing the whole way, armed with a sword and the staff she used while working her particular charms. She turned out to need both, but the real luck of the draw was when Ruth slipped up above the dragon and tipped a rock down on its head.

“I was meant to save you,” Idgie said, because wasn’t that how the stories went?

“You can tell it that way if you want,” Ruth said, and Idgie had to kiss her right then, she really did.

ii.

Ruth was the first queen to take the throne in the land of – well, it was very far away, the name is impossible to spell. But she was the first queen, and so her advisors didn’t really know what to do with her. 

“You’re going to make a woman the Queen’s Defender?”

“Yes,” Ruth said, smiling that smile her staff had taken to call her get-things-done smile. (Ruth’s various smiles had become legendary already.)

“But it isn’t seemly! It’s not how things are done around here!” The Duke of – well, never mind what he was the duke of, he was an old stuffed shirt and he was very upset.

“I’d like to see any man beat the Marchioness,” Ruth said calmly, and even the most irate advisors quieted at that, for the Marchioness had a reputation, and one that had been justly earned. 

And so it came to pass that a woman won the first tourney of the year and was publicly instated as the Queen’s Defender, and when Ruth nodded, the Marchioness of Threadgoode knelt in front of her and was offered the Queen’s hand to kiss. 

Now, if they got up to other things behind closed doors, by way of the adjoining chamber to the Queen that the Queen’s Defender was given, then that is their story.

iii.

Idgie Threadgoode enlisted in the Great War under her brother’s name, because she wanted to be part of the most important fight this century was likely to see. 

(“You would have gone if you could.”

“Yes, I would,” Idgie said.)

She cut her hair even shorter and she wore an extra shirt (not like she had much to hide anyway), and they took her because they needed every man they could get.

But then she was wounded.

(“Doing something brave and stupid?”

“Something like that.”)

They brought her to the Red Cross tent and Idgie realized – through the wound fever, mind you – that she couldn’t be undressed in front of everyone in there, so she grabbed hold of a nurse they were carrying her past and said “Nurse, can you help me?”

The nurse’s name was Ruth, and though she almost told Idgie off for grabbing at her, she saw how desperate she was and halted them, bending down to listen to Idgie.

“I’ll take care of it,” she whispered and stood up again, telling them to bring her to the back of the tent where she hastily covered Idgie in blankets and maneuvered around so that Idgie could be helped without risking the reveal of her secret.

After Idgie’s wound had been dressed and she was slipping off to sleep, Ruth came and sat by her to make sure she wouldn’t be taken badly by the laudanum.

Idgie smiled at her. “You sure are beautiful,” she said. “And saved my life to boot, you did.”

“It’s what I’m here for,” Ruth said, but she had to smile back. Idgie was scrawny and dirty but somehow Ruth liked the look of her.

(“You know I do,” Ruth said.

“I don’t understand why, still,” Idgie said, “but I’m not gonna argue with my luck.”)

“I could kiss you for it,” Idgie said. 

Ruth looked down at her hands and smiled. “Ask me again when you’re a little less dopey,” she said, and her cheeks turned red.

“I will,” Idgie said happily. “Count on it.”

iv. 

“You’re one for stories, Idgie Threadgoode,” Ruth said, smiling up at her from the bed. “You made me a scullery maid and a queen and a nurse in the war, what will you make of me next?”

“I like you best like this,” Idgie said, coming back over the room to sit on the bed. “Just like this, right here in my bed.”

“Is that right?” Ruth said, and her voice was so warm. “It’s a good thing you’ve got me, then, isn’t it?”

“A very good thing,” Idgie said, tucking a lock of Ruth’s hair behind her ear. “I can’t think of a better thing in the whole wide world than you in my bed.”

“What are you going to do now you’ve got me?” Ruth asked, and her eyes were laughing as she looked up at Idgie. Idgie smiled, and bent down to kiss her.

“Never let you go,” she murmured, lips moving against Ruth’s. “Never, ever.”


End file.
